Blue Crab Dissections

I had the pleasure of working with Kaitlyn Schroeder with her blue crab research. On 7/15/2014 and 7/16/2014, I dissected 3 blue crabs each day to collect samples of the muscle tissue from the legs, gills and the hepatopancreas. Kaitlyn is researching the effect of certain pesticides that we commonly use. The crabs are exposed to a pesticide at certain strengths. The crabs that I dissected were exposed 36 hours earlier with a (I believe) 10:1 ratio.

Who We Are

Erin Erben

What We Did

We dissected crabs to retrieve samples of muscle, gills and the hepatopancreas. Not an easy task!

What We Learned

I learned not only skills of how to dissect but reasoning for how to do things. Even how to clean your materials is regulated and not just by the grad student. These are standards set up for everyone’s safety. Just like in a classroom where procedures are set up for the safety of students.

Questions We Have

Still need to write down the pesticide that was being studied today.

Connections to Teaching

Not only is this a cool story of what I did over the summer but I can use this as how humans affect their environment. This is tangible proof of research currently being done about the area around them. I cannot wait for this part of my curriculum to come up this year!

ETEAMS Core Partners

Disclaimer: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1321319. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the author's institutions.